


break those pretty porcelain dolls

by FancifulRivers



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Everyone needs therapy tbh, Gen, Help this poor traumatized baby, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Neglect, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Transphobia, No Mercy Route mentions, Non-Binary Chara, Non-Binary Frisk, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Undertale Soulless Pacifist Route, Sans that pun was terrible, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, The title is based on a Mother Mother lyric, implied/referenced misgendering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 03:36:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15185891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FancifulRivers/pseuds/FancifulRivers
Summary: Chara has their body back, but they're nothing like their siblings.They hate themselves for it.





	break those pretty porcelain dolls

Sometimes you remember what it was like before. You remember your birth name, grating on your ears and making you grind your teeth. You remember pink bows threaded through your hair and poofy skirts with lots of layers and white tights. You remember mary jane shoes that pinched your toes and frilly sleeves and makeup that made you sneeze.

You remember using your nails to poke lots of holes in your tights, dragging your thumbnails up to create runs, and yanking the bows out and ripping the skirts apart, like they're made of wet, crumpled tissue paper. You remember searching for scissors to take to your hair before your mother caught you and then you were locked in the guest room closet because nothing was in it, while they both took turns yelling at you through the thin slats of wood about what a disgraceful child you were and how maybe they should have taken the social worker up on her offer.

It's not the only reason you disappear up the mountain, but it's one of them.

The monsters are nothing like your long-dead-and-gone birth parents. Toriel and Asgore never call you a disgrace, never wish you on some poor hapless monster, not even when you push Asriel down because he startled you and you don't know how to react when you're angry. Toriel teaches you how to knit and Asgore teaches you how to garden. You teach Ree how to color better.

Your plan is stupid, but so are you, and perhaps you shouldn't be surprised it doesn't work. No matter how angry you are at the end, you're not surprised then, either, because Ree's always been a little crybaby. If he can't even hit you back, how could he kill someone?

You are surprised when Frisk falls down, though. They wear a striped shirt like you and they have Determination throbbing in their veins like you and they're- well, they're a  _them_ like you. They have choppy brown hair and scarred brown skin and they don't talk and they-

They feel like something important, something deep inside them, has been snuffed out.

You just want to light that, you just want to make them feel something other than apathy, but all you know is violence, and a handful of dust does nothing but push Frisk farther back, push them into the farthest reaches of their own mind. By the time you realize what's happened, it's too late, and you're having-

Well, you're having a  _bad time_.

When you reset, it's different. You apologize, although the words are unfamiliar and drag on your tongue, and you think that maybe that makes a little bit inside of them grow. They didn't need flames, they need flowers. You think of buttercups and start laughing so hard, you'd be choking if you were alive. Frisk doesn't know what to make of it. Neither do you.

You break the barrier.  _Frisk_ breaks the barrier, but you help. You insist on helping your stupid brother, the one who's so convinced he'll turn back to Flowey, he's ready to martyr himself into the dirt. It hurts when he says you weren't a very nice person, but you don't try to argue. Or let Frisk say anything. It's not like he's  _wrong_.

Frisk takes up the ambassadorship. You think they're suited to it. They are calm and smiling and a happy-looking child (and if that's not always particularly true, at least the  _humans_ don't need to hear about it).

Frisk is smooth and rounded down, like river rocks tumbled by the current. You are sharp and abrasive. Your corners hurt people, hurt  _yourself_ , and you don't know how to make them stop. You don't go to school after the first disastrous day, where you told your teacher to fuck off and tried to stab the resident bully in the arm with a pair of scissors. You hear Mom talking to the skeleton that evening about home schooling, and you hate yourself that much more. Maybe if you weren't such a piece of shit, you'd be able to handle this.

Instead, all you want to do is finish what you started so long ago and stay dead this time.

Even  _Ree_ seems to be adjusting better than you. He's stayed himself, although he has weekly sessions with Alphys to monitor what's going on. You prepare a flower pot, on the off chance, although Frisk says that's morbid. You think you're just prepared. He goes to monster school and shuffles between Mom's house and Dad's like you do. It's weird when you do now, though. All you can remember is accidentally poisoning him and you usually end up hiding in your room. You know you're hurting him, but that's kind of your speciality, isn't it?

"Dad wants you to come out," Ree coaxes through the door. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. He makes you tea and sometimes you garden a little with him. Never buttercups. Never anything yellow. Even dandelions make your throat burn with remembered pain and you hate it because you used to love the tenacious little weeds.

You avoid everyone else when you can. You don't know how to relate to Undyne and Alphys. Undyne likes fighting, and so do you, but she's so  _loud_ about it. It makes you feel overwhelmed. Alphys has some pretty cool anime recommendations, but she also turned your brother into a soulless flower, and that's...it's not like you don't forgive her or you think she's a bad person or anything. She's  _not_. But maybe she reminds you a little too uncomfortably about yourself. 

Napstablook's too shy and Mettaton's too busy. Muffet's cool but she gives you the heebie jeebies. You've never liked spiders. Grillby's literally made of fire and anyway, you're not allowed to go to restaurants alone, not after what you did at McDonald's (it was an _accident,_ okay?). Papyrus has the same problem as Undyne. He's so loud and exuberant (and you can't help but remember that you killed him when he believed in you, and  _wow_ , aren't you a piece of shit?) Sans- 

Sans just freaks you out.

You'd think a monster with one fucking HP wouldn't be hard to take out, but he sure proved you wrong. You think you still have imprints on your soul from his bone attacks. Sometimes you feel like asking him to take it out and check. But you don't know if he knows about the resets. You don't know if he remembers that you killed Papyrus and everyone he ever cared about.

You don't want to know.

You're at your mom's when it happens. You're in your room, fiddling with your 3DS, sound turned off because you hate listening to it. You should be at school, but you don't have it, so all you can see out the window is lemon sunshine and candy floss wisps of clouds. The sky is bright, burning blue. Birds twitter in the trees, and that does it because you-

You should be burning in hell.

You still have your knife. You don't know how or why, but why look a gift horse in the mouth? Why care when it means you can fish it out from under your bed, rest the sharp end against your shin ( _why_ do you always pick your fucking  _shins_ , it always stings like a million bees when you do, and yet you can't stop), and-

"kid?"

You scramble back against the wall, blood smearing down your leg. You keep hold of the knife, you don't know how, as you stare at the skeleton standing in your doorway with wide eyes.

"chara?" He repeats. You pray for white pinpoints when your eyes roam across his face, but wisps of yellow and blue float in one socket. Your breathing speeds up.

"hey," he says. "calm down. it's okay." You shake your head. No, it's not. It will never be okay. You're a murderer, you're a fucked up demon kid, you're the fuck-up the monsters can't seem to leave behind, and-

"tori!" Sans shouts, and you want to stop him because your mother's even  _worse_ to walk in on this, but sure enough, your mother stoops through the doorway, taking in your tear-stained, snotty-nosed face and bloody shin in one glance.

"My child," she says softly. "Please put down the knife."

"I need it," you whisper. Your voice is thick and choked with phlegm (how totally  _gross_ , but that's you!).

"You don't," she contradicts. Despite yourself, your fingers relax and the blood-stained weapon falls to your bedspread. The skeleton grabs it with his magic before you can think of picking it up again. Asshole.

"Chara, why were you-" Mom gestures toward your leg. You stiffen. 

"I'm bad," you say, each word dragged through unwilling lips. "Born bad- you shouldn't- I don't belong here, I'm not like Frisk-  _definitely_ not like Ree- I'm a  _demon_ , I should have stayed dead-"

"Never," Mom says instantly. "Never, my child. I have never once regretted that you are alive again. I am so, so glad that you are alive and that you have come back to me."

"But I'm not your real child," you object, shivering miserably in the warm circle of her arms looped around you. She is one of the few people allowed to touch you. One of the few people who  _can_ touch you without feeling like you want to climb out of your own skin. "Not-"

"You are my real child in every way that matters," Toriel says, her voice firm.

"But I cause so many problems," you say. "I start fights and I- I can't go to school and I can't be around people and I-"

"Chara, you are traumatized," Mom says, as if it's the simplest thing in the world. 

 _But I killed you,_ you think, but don't say. You don't know how to bring  _that_ timeline up. You don't think it's your place, not without talking to Frisk about it first. The weight of it bows your spine.

"May I heal you?" Mom asks. You love that she asks permission. You nod, a little reluctantly, and feel the soothing tingles of her healing magic wash through you. In a moment, not even a scar is left, although you still have flakes of dried blood clinging to your skin and pants leg.

"Now," she continues. "I was making a cinnamon butterscotch pie. Would you like to help me finish it?"

You nod and she leaves the room, letting Sans be the one to chivvy you to the kitchen. You watch him with wide, wary eyes. The blue has gone, but you don't know where he put the knife.

"you aren't getting it back," he says, accurately guessing the thrust of your thoughts. You scowl at him.

"It's mine," you say. "You can't just-"

"i can," he says. "hey, chara?"

"Yes?" You look at him, apprehensive.

"i remember," he says. The bottom of your stomach drops out. "at least kinda. but hey, you reset, right?" Slowly, you nod. "you fixed it."

"I don't know if that fixes it," you admit. Sans shrugs.

"we're all alive, aren't we?" He points out. "now come on. tori's not very  _knife_ to keep waiting." He pulls your knife out of nowhere, letting it flip in the air.

Your shriek of outrage follows him out the door.


End file.
